Nutrition Tips: Nutritious New Cereal - Not The Cap’n, But Close

If you were as pissed as I was when Dr. Atkins banned cereal from America’s breakfast tables, I recommend that you check out Nature’s Path new cereal: Organic SmartBran.

Whether you enjoy this cereal in a bowl with milk, as a crunchy trail mix addition, on top of yogurt, or blended into a smoothie, you’ll get great taste, great crunch and a big fiber boost to boot.

SmartBrans’ all-organic ingredients include wheat bran, oat finer, oat bran and psyllium. (Check out my Psyllium post –this stuff is KEY to shedding and maintaining weight loss). My only mini- gripe is the evaporated cane juice (aka sugar) in SmartBran. Rarely do I eat or recommend products with more than 5g of added sugar. But SmartBran (with 6g of sugar per serving) still passes my “neurotic consumer” test based on its whopping and wonderful fiber content.

The stats:

- 1 serving = 2/3 Cup (a nice portion when plumped with milk and berries)
- 90 calories (130 cal with about a ½ C skim milk)
- 5g fat (10g with the milk)
- 160 mg sodium
- 13g fiber (fantastic!)
- 3g protein (even more with milk or yogurt)

A Brief Aside…

Part of the advertising campaign for this new, boxed gem includes the recipe for “SmartBran Mediterranean Salad Toss”.

First impression: Not quite sure I love the sounds of this. I think the cereal nuggets are supposed to improvise as croutons. Interesting.

Well, unless the Nature’s Path’s PR people are hugely stupid, I suppose it can’t be awful. If anyone has the courage or inclination to tie on their apron and give this recipe a whirl, please let me know. If fiber cereal can successfully sub for crouts I need to know about it.

A Whole New Bowl

While I can’t tell you that SmartBran is Cap’n Crunch reincarnated as an organic, high-fiber, low-sugar breakfast, I CAN assure you that it is as crunchy and tasty as it is healthy.

And just like the Cap’n, you can still watch cartoons while you eat it …

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Health Sundae